Economic Growth-Technology, Knowledge And Workplace Management- The Process Of Economic Growth Leading New Managerial Challenges

“ECONOMIC GROWTH:
TECHNOLOGY, KNOWLEDGE AND WORKPLACE MANAGEMENT”
The process of economic growth leading new managerial challenges
“Our evolution and success in populating the world arose out of an interaction that began when we first hunted animals for food, clothing an shelter. We learned to make tools like spears and later domesticated animals. This began the differentiation of humansfrom other social groups of primates. The physiological potential for speech, interacting with the social need to communicate, led through natural selection to improved language skills. At the same time, the brain grew rapidly with an increasing ability to reflect upon, learn from experience and subsequently to predict and plan.” (Feldman & Lotz, 2004, p.294)
Societies have evolved. Richcountries getting richer and in the other hand people desperately looking for jobs; life expectancy being longer, new generations facing unpredictable globalisation’s challenges and a whole economic system continuously changing. These are some of the concerns that will be discussed around the economic environment. It will be observed what is the role and influence of developed nations, like UK and US,as a case study of the economic growth in order to analyse changes in management and define factors that provide better workplace conditions.
In the past centuries this two nations have remained as the strongest and largest economies in the world, it is important to analyse their history and development phases within industrial evolution and technological innovations. This “two neoliberalfrontrunners” (Fernández and Hogenboom, 2008) became richer and more developed as a result of an entire process. According to Mokyr (1990), economic growth can occur as a result of four different processes:
-Investment
-Commercial expansion
-Scale or size effect
-Increases in the stock of human knowledge

By looking and comparing their past events concerning these countries it would be easier toidentify the relationship between science, technology, innovation and knowledge, and the impact of these in the workplace based in this four processes.

INVESTMENT: network of economies.
Nowadays companies are switching to new software and IT technologies, but what challenges did older companies faced years ago? Perrucci (2009) explores how U.S. corporations needed to invest in technology,such as equipment and tools that could help them gain efficiency in the areas of automobiles, steel, textiles, and electronics as a respond to new competitors. Instead of investing in better manufacturing technologies American corporations decided to start joint ventures with firms in foreign countries. The introduction of outsourcing leaded to other issues as downsizing and plant closing,consequently affecting workers. (Perrucci, 2009)
In this case, American corporations needed to change their strategy of investment by looking for options overseas that could protect their profits. Transferring capital to other countries has become a network where now decisions made and management of these different economies affect us all. (Perrucci,2009)

COMMERCIAL EXPANSION: production, inventionand innovation.
Referring to history, Fernández and Hogenboom (2008) pointed a change in how man has evolved from hunting, to trade and commercialization of different products. Commercial expansion started when looking for new ways to trade goods and services. As population started to grow the supply and demand forced industries to look for new ways to provide products, and also the opportunity toreach different markets.
Perrucci (2009) identifies that “the post-war system was the basis for U.S. growth and prosperity during the 1950s, the 1960s, and the early 1970s”. He mentions how American companies became the major exporter of goods and services to nations in Europe - like England, France, Italy and Germany - that were suffering the consequences of war. European citizens needed new...